The history of modern warfare is full of examples of heavy casualties being incurred when soldiers attempt to overtake a well defended city on foot. The World War II battle of Stalingrad involved door to door fighting of ground troops for many weeks. Effective usage of tanks, artillery, and air power by the attackers is greatly impeded because the defenders hunker down in basements and employ snipers to great advantage. In the post-cold war era, the U.S. military is expected to face many engagements with hostiles in urban settings. It is increasingly necessary for a small number of lightly armed soldiers to enter one or more buildings defended by armed terrorists and other hostiles and to eliminate these hostiles, rescue hostages and secure the area from counter-attack. In many cases unarmed civilians are also present and they must not be harmed if at all possible. The presence of civilians makes it politically unacceptable to use bombs and other heavy weapons under such circumstances. The presence of civilians or so-called friendlies also impedes traditional methods of infantry attack. The U.S. Army in particular has placed a very high emphasis in effective training soldiers in optimum doctrine, tactics and weapons usage in xe2x80x9cmilitary operations in urban terrainxe2x80x9d (MOUT). Therefore, it is necessary for soldiers to receive rigorous training in environments that simulate real-life urban combat conditions as closely as possible. Special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams of local law enforcement agencies can also benefit from similar training.
For many years the U.S. Army has trained soldiers with a multiple integrated laser engagement system (MILES). One aspect of MILES involves a small arms laser transmitter (SAT) being affixed to the barrel of a small arms weapon such as an M16A1 rifle or a machine gun. Each soldier is fitted with optical detectors on his or her helmet and on a body harness adapted to detect an infrared laser xe2x80x9cbulletxe2x80x9d hit. The soldier pulls the trigger of his or her weapon to fire a blank or blanks to simulate the firing of an actual round or multiple rounds. An audio sensor and a photo-optic sensor in the SAT detect the firing of the blank round(s) and simultaneously a semiconductor laser diode in the SAT is energized to emit an infrared laser beam toward the target in the conventional sights of the weapon. The infrared laser beam is encoded with the soldier""s player identification (PID) code. Each soldier wears a digital player control unit (DPCU) that tells the player whether he or she has suffered a particular type of casualty or had a near miss, the time of the event and the identity of the shooter.
The U.S. Army presently uses MILES equipment in its MOUT training. MILES-equipped soldiers conduct orchestrated assaults on buildings defended by MILES-equipped enemies. During so-called after action reviews (AARs) instructors can download information from each player control unit to assess whether or not the soldiers have followed proper tactics and the accuracy of their small arms weapons fire. Critical to instructor assessment of assault team performance is the location of each player within the building at a given time of the exercise. This information is presently not available in conventional MILES equipment used indoors.
It is difficult to track the movements of military commandos during simulated urban assaults because they often take place in complete darkness thus requiring the use of infrared night vision devices. Therefore, it is not possible simply to use video surveillance. Infrared tracking is not a viable option because it requires mirrors and other delicate devices not well suited for harsh training environments. Furthermore, infrared tracking could interfere with the operation of the conventional MILES training equipment. A radar-based locating system would not be appropriate for simulated urban training environments because of the distortions induced by the building structures such as steel door frames that would impair location accuracy. Ultrasound position locating systems have so-far proven to be problematic in this type of environment because the firing of blank cartridges and other spurious sources of ultra-sound noise interfere with the precisely timed ultrasound signals from pre-positioned emitters. Global positioning system (GPS) equipment cannot acquire satellite signals indoors.
During a MOUT training exercise utilizing conventional MILES training equipment it is not possible to simulate area weapon effects, e.g the detonation of a hand grenade, bomb, artillery shell or chemical biological weapon. While these types of area weapon effects can be simulated in a complex area weapon effects system (AWES), such a system requires the use of GPS, multilateration or some other type of sophisticated and expensive position locating system not suitable for use inside buildings.
Any addition of location and area weapon effects features to conventional MILES training equipment must should be done as inexpensively as possible to provide the U.S. military and its allies with the option of performing xe2x80x9chome stationxe2x80x9d MOUT training without having to travel to sophisticated, highly instrumented national training ranges such as the one located in Barstow, Calif. In addition, any additional equipment should be readily installed and should not require major physical alterations to the site. This is because it would be desirable to hastily construct and instrument a building or set of buildings that closely resembles an actual crisis location and to conduct xe2x80x9cdress rehearsalxe2x80x9d MILES-based MOUT training therein with location detection and area weapon effects features. For example, a make-shift Entebbe airport terminal could have been constructed, instrumented and used for assault training by the Israeli special forces before conducting the actual rescue operation. It would be unduly expensive to wire mock buildings and install video cameras throughout the same. In some cases, it may not be possible to make physical alterations to a structure, such as the passenger cabin of a commercial airliner, for the purpose of instrumenting the same for a MILES-based MOUT exercise.
It is therefore the primary object of the present invention to provide a low cost system and method that will provide indications to instructors of the location of each member of an assault team during a MOUT training exercise utilizing conventional MILES equipment.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a low cost system and method that will enable area weapon effects to be simulated during a MOUT training exercise utilizing conventional MILES equipment.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a system and method that will allow buildings and other facilities to be rapidly equipped for MILES-based MOUT training exercises that permit location tracking and area weapon effects simulation, without making any major physical modifications to the facilities.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a system is provided for training players in an urban combat environment. The system includes at least one stationary area effects weapon simulator including a first infrared emitter. A plurality of sets of infrared detectors are also provided, each set being worn by a player. A plurality of player units are also provided, each player unit being carried by a player and connected to a corresponding set of infrared detectors for logging hits on the corresponding set of detectors of infrared energy emitted from the first infrared emitter in the stationary area effects weapon simulator or a second infrared emitter mounted on a mobile small arms weapon. In an alternate embodiment of the system, instead of the stationary area effects weapon simulator, a stationary locator is used which transmits a location signal encoded in an infrared emission which is logged by the player units so that an instructor can determine when and where the player suffered a casualty or a near miss.
The present invention also provides a method of training players in an urban combat environment. The method involves the initial step of equipping a plurality of players with optical detectors, SAT-equipped small arms weapons, and player units. The method further involves installing a stationary area effects weapon simulator in a room of a building or other combat area to be assaulted by the players. The method further involves the steps of causing the players to enter the combat area and emitting infrared energy from the stationary area effects weapon simulator at an optical wavelength compatible with the optical wavelength of the energy emitted by the SAT-equipped small arms weapons. The infrared energy emitted from the stationary area effects weapon simulator has a weapon effects code and/or a location code encoded therein. The next step of the method involves receiving the infrared energy emitted from the stationary area effects weapon simulator with the optical detectors of at least one of the players that has entered the combat area. The final step of our method involves logging the weapon effects and location codes in the player unit of the player that has received the infrared energy emitted from the stationary area effects weapon simulator. In a modification of the method, only a location code is emitted by a stationary locator which is logged by the player unit.